This could be the moment that comic book superheroes screen adaptations ascend to the level of stage Shakespeare. If audiences accept a new Spider-man just five years after the last Tobey Maguire effort then soon it will be a legitimate inquiry of an rising young thesp as to when we can expect to see his Batman, or if he intends to give us his interpretation of The Hulk.

Or it could be the moment the world decides to tire of costumed heroes being taken quite so seriously.

Either way I have to say I very much enjoyed Andrew Garfield take on Spider-man which struck a nice balance between tortured teen angst and joyous youthful exuberance, even though Marc Webb’s production didn’t offer up a distinctive take on the material. It is slightly darker, comparatively stripped down and moderately more character driven than Sam Raimi’s 2002 production, but while there are some nice touches overall it simply tweaks with the original rather than give it a complete overhaul. This isn’t Batman Begins, it’s Spider-man Again.

Maybe it’s an issue with the character. While The Bat can happily encompass such diverse but equally compelling interpretations by Christian Bale, Michael Keaton and Adam West, the webslinger seems hemmed in by his mythology. It’s nearly an hour before Spider-man first appears and having to sit through the whole story of how high school nerd Parker got bitten by a radioactive spider feels like being made to redo homework you already got a high grade for. Better surely to have done with it in a five minute pre-credit sequence.

It does it well enough and the moments when Parker comes to terms with his freakish transformation have a sense of body horror similar to Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. Ifans plays villain Curt Connors/ The Lizard with the voice but not quite the swagger of Peter O’ Toole. Emma Stone makes an appealing love interest as Gwen Stacey but you have to suppress hoots of incredulity when she delivers the line “Honestly, I’m seventeen years old.” There isn’t a performer in her early twenties less suited for being cast as a high school girl; she may look wholesome but there’s something about her throaty laugh and knowing smile that suggest a soul as experienced and world weary as a barroom Mae West.

As you would expect of a director whose only previous film was romcom 500 Days of Summer, the film is stronger on character than action; most of the action sequence seem to end abruptly without reaching any conclusion and there is something a bit Harryhausen about The Lizard. It is bold of Sony to position a summer blockbuster that doesn’t rely on spectacle but the storytelling doesn’t really grab the emotions.